I have been inspired to write this article on Sant Dadu Dayal (1544—1603) of Gujarat and Rajasthan by seeing the entry on 22-2-2010 in the Sanatan Almanac (Hindu Calendar rooted in Sanatana Dharma) published by Sanatan Sanstha in Goa. The entry on this date relates to ‘Dadu Dayal Jayanthi, Rajasthan, Gujarat’.

This great Hindu Calendar of Sanatan Sanstha is a veritable Hindu Encyclopedia. It is a spiritual power station of our timeless Hindu tradition. It is a storage warehouse of the most precious jewels of Hinduism. It is a Hindu Library; a great Hindu Amphitheatre; a Hindu Museum; a Hindu Hall of Timeless Archives; a seat of Hindu Justice and above all a seat of Informal Hindu People’s Government. This beautiful Hindu calendar rooted in Sanatana Dharma is now available in five languages–Marathi, Hindi, Kannada, Telugu and English. I understand efforts are afoot to bring out this Hindu calendar in two more languages—Tamil and Malayalam. It is absolutely necessary in the larger national interest of promotion of Hindu Unity and Hindu Solidarity to bring out this calendar in all the major languages of India without any further delay. I offer my reverential salutations to Guruji H.H.Bhaktaraj Maharaj and his chosen disciple Guruji Dr.Jayant Balaji Athavale for giving us all the blessing of seeing and using this Hindu Calendar everyday.

Dadu Dayal Jayanthi falls today (22-2-2010). Dadu Dayal (1544-1603) was a great saint from Gujarat who spent the best part of his spiritual life in Rajasthan. Consequently he has thousands of devotees both in Gujarat and Rajasthan who worship him with great reverence and devotion. “Dadu” means brother, and “Dayal” means “the compassionate one”.

Very few authentic details relating to the early life of Dadu Dayal ji Maharaj are available. Born in Ahmedabad in 1544, he made Rajasthan his home. Like Saint Kabir, Dadu came from one of the many lower artisan castes. It is said that Dadu was a foster son of Lodhi Ram, a Naga Brahmin of Ahmedabad, who had found the infant floating on the waves of the Sabarmati river in 1545. Dadu Dayal lived in the Jaipur region of Rajasthan, most probably as a pinjari, a cotton carder. He married and had a family of two sons and two daughters. He attained Samadhi in Naraina in Jaipur district in 1603. Emperor Akbar is said to have been one of his followers.

Dadu Dayal is one of the major representatives of the Nirguna Sant traditions in Northern India. He gathered around himself a group of followers, which became known as the Dadu-panth in his own lifetime. This organization has continued in Rajasthan to the present-day, and has been a major source of early manuscripts containing songs by the North Indian saints.

Dadu ji had 100 disciples who followed his teachings and attained salvation. He instructed an additional 52 disciples to set up ashrams, known as ‘Thambas’ around the region to spread the Lord’s word.

Five thambas are considered sacred by the followers, namely, Naraina, Bhairanaji, Sambhar, Amer, and Karadala (Kalyanpura). Followers of these thambas then spread and set up other places of worship.

Shri Dadu Dham Bhairana, which lies in the secluded hilly tract of Bichoon district in the Jaipur division of Rajasthan, has become a sacred place of pilgrimage for lakhs of devotees of Saint Dadu Dayal Ji Maharaj from Haryana. The devotees come from Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Maharashtra and other parts of the country. They hold the place in reverence. The remaining part of the story relating to the eternal importance of Bhairana in the life of Daduji Maharaj can now be told.

The ancient Bhairana hill, which is situated amidst exquisite natural surroundings, has been the hermitage of many saints and seers since times immemorial. It is said that at the pressing solicitations of Uddhava Bhagat, a prominent resident of Bhairana, on one occasion Daduji Maharaj himself made a brief visit to Bhairana during which time he intuitively and instantly realised the spirit of the adorable sanctity of this ancient abode of saints. Later at the time of his departure from the world in 1603, Daduji instructed his disciple-saints at Naraina thus: “After my demise, take my body to the Bhairana hill and then leave it there at the spot in its deep gorge. Hence forward, it shall be known as our sanctum-sanctorum and it shall continue to be a place of worship for saints and sadhus for all times to come in the future as well.”

Accordingly, when Dadu Ji Maharaj breathed his last on in 1603, his body was taken in a palanquin from Naraina to Bhairana and placed there in its gorge by thousands of his disciple-saints. When they were engaged in a discussion regarding the last rites to be performed, a supernatural incident is said to have occurred all of a sudden. Tila Ji, a disciple-saint of Dadu Ji Maharaj, saw his guru standing at the gate of a cave near the hilltop. He brought it to the notice of others too. Instantly Daduji Maharaj spoke “Satya Ram” to all and then vanished into the cave. According to the legend and tradition, the palanquin also disappeared and only some flowers were left there. The devotees had to remain contented with performing the last rites with those flowers at that site where now stands a large memorial, which is sacred to the Dadu-panthis.

The place is now popularly known as Dadu Khol or Dadu Ganga where ashes of saints, sadhus and other devotees of the Dadu cult are scattered at this sacred spot very much like the immersion of the ashes of the Hindus in the River Ganga at Haridwar.

Shree Dadu Dayal Dham near Kankaria Lake in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India

Dadupanth even today is a strong movement in the States of Gujarat, Rajasthan, Haryana and the adjoining regions. Daduji belongs to the lineage of Nirguna Sants like Kabir and Guru Nanak.

The Vaishnava Sant tradition developed in Maharashtra and it focused on devotion to a “Saguna” form of Lord Vishnu or Lord Krishna. Another Sant tradition developed in several parts of Northern India and more particularly in the Punjab which advocated devotion to a ‘Nirguna’ form of the Lord viewed as the ineffable absolute without shape or form, the source and support of the Cosmos, by Whose Grace beings are liberated from the cycle of birth and death. Kabir, Guru Nanak, Meera Bai, Ravidas and Dadu Dayal belonged to this Nirguna Sant tradition.

Dadu Dayal was a great poet-mystic and spiritual Master of Divine Light, Sound, and Nirguna Bhakti from Rajasthan in the lineage of Guru Kabir. Dadu alludes to the bliss of Sahaja in his songs. Much of the imagery used in his songs is similar to that used by Kabir, and similar also to that used by the earlier Sahajiya Buddhists and Nath yogis. Dadu’s compositions were recorded by his disciple Rajjab and are known as the Dadu Anubhav Vaani, a compilation of 5,000 verses. His songs are in a Hindi dialect known as Braj Bhasa, being a mixture of Hindi and Rajasthani. Janagopal another disciple of Dadu Dayal wrote the earliest biography of Dadu.

Translations of Dadu bhajans are quite rare in English. Let me give an English translation of two of the verses of Sant Dadu Dayal titled ‘The Vision of the Beloved’ and ‘An Outer Guru That Is Not an Inner Guru, Not a Qualified Teacher’

I. The Vision of the Beloved

One sits fearlessly by repeating God’s Name;
the Negative Power can never consume him.
When you ride the elephant, 0h Dadu,
then dogs bark in vain.
When love and devotion arise,
one is firmly established in blissful meditation.
With the grace of the Master,
he then drinks the divine Nectar, 0h Dadu.
By being dedicated to the Lord,
millions of obstacles are removed.
A tiny spark the size of a mustard seed
burns a huge amount of wood, 0h Dadu.
Impurities and blemishes of the mind
are burnt up in the fire of separation.
The separated lover will now see
the vision of the Beloved, 0h Dadu.

II. An Outer Guru That Is Not an Inner Guru, Not a Qualified Teacher

The whole world makes an outer display,
whereas the practice of the Saint is within.
This is the difference between the two;
hence no accord is found between them.

A new pot taken from the potter’s furnace
may be decorated with many pictures outside;
But of what use will it be to you,
0h Dadu, without any contents?
Such are the ones who make outer display of religiosity.

From one who bears no outer religious symbols,
but has unfathomable riches within,
receive the wealth and keep it within
your heart, 0h Dadu, and be obedient to such a Saint.

There is a great difference between a Saint and a mimic,
the two are as far apart as earth and sky.
The Saint is absorbed in God, whereas
the mimic pins his hopes on the world.

The One alone dwells within my heart,
Day and night I repeat His Name.
The Name of God alone is true;
keep that within your heart.
Forsake all hypocrisies and cumbrous practices;
this is the teaching of all Saints, 0h Dadu.

We can see the essence of similarity between the above verse and the following verse of Kabir titled ‘Weaving Your Name’. Kabir too was a mystical poet like Sant Dadu Dayal. Kabir belonged to the 15th century. Both Kabir and Sant Dadu Dayal belonged to the Nirguna Sant Tradition.

I weave your name on the loom of my mind,
To make my garment when you come to me.
My loom has ten thousand threads
To make my garment when you come to me.
The sun and moon watch while I weave your name;
The sun and moon hear while I count your name.
These are the wages I get by day and night
To deposit in the lotus bank of my heart.

I weave your name on the loom of my mind
To clean and soften then thousand threads
And to comb the twists and knots of my thoughts.
No more shall I weave a garment of pain.
For you have come to me, drawn by my weaving—
My ceaselessly weaving your name
On the loom of my mind.

I would also like to give another example from the same Nirguna Sant Tradition. Ravidas was a Hindu cobbler of 15th century Varanasi. He is remembered for his beautiful hymns and his gentle piety which drew many seeking souls to his shoe shop. I am presenting below a poem by Sant Ravidas titled ‘The City of God’, Considered one of his most beautiful poems.

Grieve Not is the name of my town.
Pain and fear cannot enter there,
Free from possessions, free from life’s taxes,
Free from fear of disease and death,

After much wandering I am coming back home
Where turns not the wheel of time and change,
And my Emperor rules, without a second or third,
In Abadan, filled with love and wisdom.

The citizens are rich in the wealth of the heart,
And they live ever free in the City of God.
Listen to Ravidas, just a cobbler:
“All who live here are my true friends.”

Philosophy in India is essentially spiritual. It is the intense spirituality of India, and not any great political structure or social organization that it has developed, that has enabled it to resist the ravages of time and the accidents of history. External invasions and internal dissensions came very near crushing its civilization many times in its history. The Greek and the Scythian, the Persian and the Mughal, the French and the English have by turn attempted to suppress it, and yet it has held its head high. India has not been finally subdued and its old flame of spirit is still burning. Throughout its life it has been living with one purpose. In every age it has fought for truth and against error. The saints and sages of India throughout its long and chequered history have striven for a socio-spiritual reformation of the country. The idea of Plato that philosophers must be the rulers and directors of society has always been practiced in India. The ultimate truths are truths of spirit, and in the light of them actual life has to be refined.

To conclude in the beautiful and sublime words of Dr. S. Radhakrishnan, another great philosopher-King of India:

From the beginning of her history India has adored and idealized, not soldiers and statesmen, not men of science and leaders of industry, not even poets and philosophers who influence the world by their deeds or by their words, but those rare and more chastened spirits whose greatness lies in what they are and not in what they do; men who have stamped INFINITY on the thought and life of the country, men who have added to the invisible forces of goodness in the world. They are the saints and sages, the sants, the rishis and the maharishis of India. To a world given over to the pursuit of power and pleasure, wealth and glory, they declare the resplendent splendour and transcendental reality of the unseen world and the eternal clarion call of the spiritual life. Their self-possession and self-command, their strange, deep and subtle wisdom, their exquisite kindness and courtesy, their humility and gentleness of soul, their abounding humility, proclaim that the destiny of man is to know himself and thereby further the universal life of which he is an integral element. This supreme ideal has dominated the Indian religious landscape for more than 50 centuries.

Born on 28th August 1942 at Tiruchirappalli, South India, V. Sundaram had his education in Simla and New Delhi. He took his B.A. (Hon.) Degree in Economics from St. Stephen’s College, Delhi in 1961. He also took his M.A. Degree in Economics, with specialization in Industrial Economics, from Delhi University in 1963. He worked as Lecturer in Economics in Delhi University for two years till he joined the Indian Administrative Service (I.A.S.) in 1965. He was allotted to Tamil Nadu Cadre and has served with distinction in several high positions in Tamil Nadu Government from 1966 to 1994. He sought his voluntary retirement from the I.A.S. in 1994.

His record as Development Administrator in Tamil Nadu has been outstanding. He was the first Chairman of Tuticorin Port Trust. He was the architect responsible for undertaking and completing all the Port Works relating to the creation of breakwaters, the Oil Jetty and the Coal Jetty in Tuticorin Port. On account of his dynamism and vision, Tuticorin Port was put on the Maritime Map of South East Asia.

In the field of Social Welfare, he has been devoted to the welfare and rehabilitation of the physically handicapped, particularly the patients suffering from leprosy. As Director of Social Welfare, he established 10 Homes in Tamil Nadu for the rehabilitation of vagrant beggars afflicted with leprosy and leprosy patients languishing below the poverty line.

After coming out of the Government in April 1994 he has held several responsible positions both in the public and private sector. He was Administrator of the World Bank assisted National Highways Project relating to four-laning of the National Highway from Cuttack to Kolkatta with Headquarters in Bhuvaneshwar. He was Secretary-General of Hindustan Chamber of Commerce, Chennai for two years.

Till January 2010, he was working as Associate Editor of News Today (a daily in English from Chennai) and Malai Sudar (a daily in Tamil from Chennai). As a fearless journalist, he has contributed, over a period of 5 years, more than 2500 articles in the field of economics, literature, art and culture, religion and philosophy, apart from politics and public affairs. He is known for his forthright, hard-hitting and fearless journalism. His watchwords are S G S T—Stern Grim Scorching Truth! He is known for his independence and courage of conviction. His motto is: “without courage there can be no truth and without truth there is no other virtue”.

As a lover of books he has a large private library, full of rare and antiquarian books. He has authored several books and monographs.

Dr. ‘Indira’ Parthasarathy, the highly decorated and internationally known Tamil novelist and man of letters reviewed Shri Sundaram’s book Essays and Reviews, which was released in 1993:

What strikes me most after reading this modestly entitled book “Essays and Reviews,” is the immense versatility of the author. He is totally at ease dealing with marbles as well as metaphysics. This anthology features articles on wide-ranging subjects such as History, Biography, Literature, Social and Economic Development and also a few Autobiographical sketches. The recurring theme in all these topics is what appears to me Sundaram’s nostalgia for the past and his anxiety about the future. In short, he is obsessed with what he describes as “Madame Time”. . . . He is Proustean in his objective approach to the past, as golden moments gone for ever; Carlylian in glorifying heroes of a bygone era as men of nation’s destiny and Hegelian, in elevating history to replace God. To him, it appears, history is the arbiter of all values and rightly so. Sundaram is a poet at heart. It is reflected in all his writings. If poetry is a “Style in Thinking” as Eliot says, there is ample evidence in his anthology that Sundaram has his own distinctive and imaginative way in approaching his themes. All the essays in the anthology announce the arrival of a multi-dimensional scholar and also a poet—Could this be a contradiction in terms—with an instinctive genius, for discovering the “astonishingness” in the most commonplace things which Mrs. Mathuram Bhoothilingam aptly describes as “The Spirit of Wonder.”

Dr. ‘Indira’ Parthasarathy gave this final literary verdict to Shri V. Sundaram’s book. “In an era of ‘aesthetic abundance’ unfortunately ushered in by democracy and technological explosion, looking for needles in haystacks has become the full-time occupation of a Conservative reader, who still clings to the old-fashioned belief that quality is all. I don’t feel ashamed to confess that I am a Conservative in regard to my reading habits and I am immensely happy, now that I have found a needle.”

V. Sundaram is a lover and keen student of Carnatic Music. He is a trained Mridangam Player (a percussion instrument like the drums). He has a rare and magnificent collection of rare audio voices of great statesmen and men of history, scholars, philosophers and poets of international fame. A keen collector of South Indian art, he has donated several bronzes and other art objects to the Madras Museum.

V. Sundaram is married to Padma who comes from a family of distinguished Sanskrit scholars. He hails from Ennappadam village near Palghat, Kerala. His wife Padma Sundaram hails from Tondikulam Village, near Nurani Village near Palghat Town, Kerala.

Among many other things, V. Sundaram has been greatly influenced by the writings of Hans J. Morgenthau (1904-1980) and Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965).

He has kept the following quotation from the writings of Morganthau on his working table for guidance everyday:

To be able to work in the service of a great idea, on behalf of an important goal; to be able to commit every nerve, every muscle, and every drop of sweat to a work, to a great task; to grow with the work, to become greater oneself in the struggle with one’s betters’ and then to be able to say at the end: I die, but there remains something that is more important than my life and will last longer than my body: my work. That is my hope, which is worthy of tremendous efforts, that is my goal, for which it is worth living and, if need be, dying.

The other quotation is from Sir Winston Churchill. In order to stoutly defend the deathless cause of public interest, V. Sundaram sought voluntary retirement from the Indian Administrative Service (IAS) in 1994 at the age of 51. At that time he quoted the following words of Sir Winston Churchill and told the Press that they were his sounding signals and guiding lights: “The only shield to a man’s honour and dignity is his conscience, the sincerity and the rectitude of his actions. Armed with this shield, he shall always march amidst the ranks of honour, whichever way the fates might play.”

The poems in this collection are on wrestling—the collegiate and amateur styles—but also how we wrestle with life, where we find wrestling in our lives, plus our gods, prophets and heroes past, those who have wrestled the classic bouts. It is modern and boundary-busting, and at the same time about tradition, a duality significant to both the poetry and wrestling communities. It is not about professional wrestling. Although that would make a wonderful project on its own, there is not enough poetry about amateur wrestling, the collegiate, Olympic, and folk styles.

The rest of this intro will be of interest to you if you would like to use any of the artwork or poetry yourself, and if you are interested in why such a collection came together—maybe for the first time. If not, then scan down to below Catherine Edmunds‘ 2009 drawing called “Greek wrestlers,” and begin reading. If you are looking for a particular poet’s work, or to see if it is included, simply click “Ctrl-F” on your keyboard. Here is a list of the living contributing poets you will find:

In lieu of bios, links to the contributors’ web sites are provided from their names. If you would like to reach them, most of the time you will find contact information there. If not, e-mail me (lowelldude@aol.com), and I will try to connect you.

The works in this collection fall under Creative Commons—Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported. This way, as you share these poems, the poets’ names remains attached, so that they continue to get credit for their work as it is passed around. In the spirit of this, each piece of artwork used below has just beneath it, as part of the image, an attribution that includes what the work is, who made it, and when. This Creative Commons agreement also protects the artists and poets from someone else making money from their works, while cutting them out. You’ll need permission for such a commercial venture. It allows, however, for you to feel free to share the works, to keep the poems handy and pass them around, and speak them at events. If you have sought these poems out for noncommercial use, wonderful!, please write the poet a thank you, but the answer is already yes.

A few years back, when I was blogging daily at Bud Bloom, November arrived, and the poetry posting necessarily slowed down, as wrestling season was about to begin. My son Dan was wrestling in college at the time, and I was a moderating contributor at MassWrestling.com, working on a comprehensive directory of all collegiate wrestlers from Massachusetts, in order that wrestlers, their family, and friends, could see how their high school wrestlers were faring in college, even if they were still active. Part of this, was to create a comprehensive list of wrestling colleges around the country, which was shared with other wrestling forums in other states. I made a brief post on the poetry blog called Wrestling With Poetry in November. I wanted to include wrestling poetry in that blog, and found some in a translation of Homer’s Iliad, but had difficulty finding it elsewhere. Since creating that blog post, I then noticed that many others who go online in search for “wrestling poetry”, come up with my post. And I always felt that that post was not allowing the searchers to find the jackpot they were looking for. Thus, there is demand, but short supply. This blog post is a wrestling poetry jackpot.

Back in July, I made a call for submissions of new and recent wrestling poems, by posting at over 20 wrestling forums, over 20 poetry forums, and to over 2500 members of Facebook. The response has been remarkable, as you can read for yourself below. And a high percentage of these gifted poets, have been or still are wrestlers or members of the wrestling community themselves. With these poems by living poets, I have merged classics. Included also are fresh translations of classic poems, and renditions of scriptural texts.

My thanks go to all the contributors listed above. Each have been a pleasure to work with. My thanks also to those who have guided this project with ideas, such as Joyce Nower, who turned me onto Emily Dickinson’s many wrestling poems, and Dennis Greene, who reminded me of the classic wrestling scene in Longfellow’s “Song of Hiawatha.” Thanks also to you for finding these poems, for shaking hands with them, and taking the time to read them, even to grapple with them when you hear the metaphoric whistle. It’s your match now, your time to enter the ring.

Somebody will be tougher, somebody will be quicker, somebody
will be strong enough to knock us flat. It’s called looking at the lights
as if when we’re horizontal and helpless, we’re also gazing at paradise.

All I know is it’s hot down there. It stinks. The friction of your head rubbing
against the mat could start a bonfire. The guy who’s decking you is breathing
in your ear, a rush of panting grunts. His sweat drips in your hair and your
girlfriend is watching from the bleachers as his muscles glisten and you are
buried. Your teammates are groaning and urging you to keep fighting
but secretly they doubt you won’t surrender and the referee is cutting
the air at smaller and flatter angles to signal the shrinking breadth
between the mat and your shoulders and he poises to slap, he poises
to slap and that is why every day in practice we must drill and rehearse
for failure.

It’s called bridging. Make your neck a great spoon stirring the soup
of your head. Stir it left. Stir it right. Hold it. Hold it. He will be a ten-
ton slab trying to break you flat—you must resist, your neck must insist
no, with your neck no, with your neck no, you must train your neck
to insist NO.

Here we are, my mercenary Greek,
back at the same crossroads
where you bested my father.
The ground when you pinned him down
is what defeated you in
hold after hold or until
you found the way to filet his strength,
the way a fisherman’s instinct
cleans flesh from the bone of earth.

That’s when you bettered him, pressing him, his feet loose,
to your chest, enjoying his death.

But I am not like him whose daughters
are my mother (earth, air, fire, and water).
I am the inbred, an avatar
thread through elements, and whose
original sin is my source of strength.

Come to me please, Herakles.
I wish to press you to my chest
and see your eyes bulge out when you meet
my father’s face in each hero’s moment
defining his one hero’s defeat.

Revenge is such a useless emotion.
I don’t want your death; just your lost look
in the echo of my father’s eyes on the mat.

I tell the storm is coming on:
My anxious windows bear the beat
Of branches after tedious days.
I hear the distant things say truths
That without friend I do not bear
And without sister cannot love.

There goes the all-reshaper storm,
Through the forest, through all time
And everything is ageless now:
The landscape, like a verse from Psalms
Is purpose, heft, eternity.

Since what we wrestle with is small
And what contends against us great,
Let the great storm subdue us, more
As all things in the world do; then
We would be distant, never named.

Our victory is in the small,
And when we win, the smaller we.
The Endless, the Superlative
Does not consent to bend to us.

The Angel of the Testament
Came to the wrestlers. Metal match:
When their contending tendons stretched
It felt beneath his fingers like
The strings of deepening melody.

The man this Angel overcame
(He often won without a fight)
Retired upright and energized,
Made great by that hard hand, which shaped
Him new, as if to recreate.
The vanquished finds a victory
Not tempting. How he grows is to
Be pinned by ever-greater gods.

How easy it is to slip.
Slowing for a switchback’s glazed curve, I
catch the radio’s news:
a school bus carrying wrestlers
from Browning to Whitefish
over this same unrelenting glare
has slammed into a tanker
jacknifed across both lanes. Then flames
killing nine in the quick cold.

Along the polished carbon dip
and swell of the Blackfoot River, I drive
over ice so darkly transparent
the pavement is a well
whose varnished shaft pulls me sliding,
an awkward creature
away from home.

What needs our sorrow?
Or passed between the stunned drivers
when the bus brakes locked
in that short skid?
During the first thoughtless seconds, boys
becoming men
dragged friends from the sudden fire, then
watched, helpless as rocks dislodged by current,
those they couldn’t reach, their screams lost to
wind biting across the dreaming world.

II

To drive far in this weather—
the afternoon half-blasted by wind gray as old wood—
invites hypnotic dreams.
I recall checking
the rearview mirror to see
your farewell shiver, then shrink in silver light. Love,
how often we’re forced apart.
Nothing is so visible as this ice,
black-humored, a stoic beyond desire.

III

There is nothing I can offer
those boys as healing as their daring, their hearts.
Tomorrow, I teach poetry in a high school
not far away. I slow
cursing these roads hunched spinal
with no shoulders for escape.
Listening to the tick of studden tires on ice,
I know how fragile the traction
holding us, what suffering
edges induce.

In the furrowed rush of black water
Frost-grained waves
grind back into themselves,
intent on motion to avoid the final freeze across.
Smoothing rocks, crisp hulls of caddis,
stone flies, last summer’s storm-rendered windfall,
the river carves its deeper trough
widening its embrace.

IV

Like a snow bank bursting, snow buntings startle
from my tires, threading
the river’s rough hem.
I envy the birds’ close escape
as they ascend—
moth fluttery, sudden confetti
folding black on white
above the snow-flocked highway—
safe to the wild shore.

Below the indifferent grade
the current endures. In dim light
its dark arms turn from themselves, deceptive
as the familiar lover.
I can almost hear water’s porcelain stampede
against an iced log above rocks
that bump gratefully inside the swirl
or hold their own.

Only the small ceremonies
of comfort and soaring can cure.
Unable to build roads for safety, I will
each speeding log truck, each
oil tanker back-skidding
to stay in its narrow lane,
to grip what can’t be held.
I wonder what job is worth
these long winter drives, clinging to slick surfaces
unpredictable as the metereology of the heart.

Even though my eyes burn
tired of the constant play of gray light
across black ice, there is no time to rest.
I drive through
this wilderness against the curve of pavement
following the river and its restless strain.

Wrestling room air thick
as an amazonian afternoon
stinkheavy with years
of sweat that not even buckets of
uncut bleach can defeat.
I was still three pounds over
my weight class before practice
and I’m grateful
for more sprints back and forth
from padded wall to padded wall
wading through 90 degree fog
in two t-shirts and three sweatshirts
and two pairs of longjohns
under my sweatpants
sweating, sweating, ounce by ounce
closer to weight, but coach
calls us in and orders us
to take a knee.
His right ear a piece
of popcorn flesh glued
to the side of his head
his eyebrows rubbed off from
years of skullgrinding
his nose crooked as
a broken arm of lightning
his knees crisscrossed
by crazed scartissue worms
he walks like
a wheelchair is days away
but somehow he wrestles us like
a landmine eating handgrenades
exploding our bodies
across the mildewed mats.
We love him
like a father
especially those of us
who have no fathers.
He speaks.
We listen.The coach from State, he begins,is gonna be at the match tomorrow.
He’s recruiting Hendry from Eastside,
none a you dumbasses, but he’s
an old pal a mine.
I look over at LaDuke who
looks at Brophy who looks
at Washington the heavyweight . . .
we hate Hendry
defending state champ who stole
Kraznicki’s girlfriend last summer
at our town’s Dairy Queen
none of us could ever beat him
but we can take Eastside as a team.Now, any a you jokers
ever think about college?
Sweat drips down my nose
onto the rubber mat.
I look over at LaDuke who
looks at Brophy who looks
at Washington the heavyweight . . .
none of us has thought of college.
LaDuke, who has failed Freshman English
twice and lives in the metal shop, though,
says, Yeah, I thought about it,
and even coach knows he’s lying.Yeah? Coach says. So what exactly
you want to study, LaDuke?
Sweat drips down his nose.
He thinks.
He answers,I dunno, maybe buildin’ stuff.
Something like a smile
creases Coach’s scarred mouth.
We smile, waiting for the verdict.Building stuff, huh? asks Coach
then he shows us that ragged row
of chipped crocodile teeth.
We laugh on cue
not really sure what is so funny.Cut the crap, says Coach
and the mice and roaches in this decayed
corner of the school take cover.What about you, Camel Jockey?
I am Camel Jockey.
I was still three pounds over
before practice and somewhere
in the frozen air above our town
21 pounds of me has been stolen
since season began in November.
I am sick of cutting weight
but I’m so close now
and tomorrow we can take Eastside.You got some A’s, didn’t you? Coach asks.
True, I got some A’s but
my parents own a bar where
I cook Italian sausage sandwiches
and butter garlic bread in front
of a 700 degree oven after practice
still dressed in sweat clothes
trying to drain off those last few ounces
wishing I could just lick the grease
off the prep counter or sneak a few
slices of Genoa salami and not be overweight
but I’m ranked in the district
at 112 pounds and the team
needs the points
if we’re gonna take leagues in two weeks.You’re smart enough, Camel, and you could be
tough enough with a few more ass whuppins,
says Coach, so whattaya think?
I can talk to the coach at State,
see what he thinks a you tomorrow.
I look over at LaDuke who
looks at Brophy who looks
at Washington the heavyweight . . .
sweat drips down my nose
and my mouth is coated in cotton
and if I’m lucky, really lucky
I only have another pound to lose
and maybe if we stop all this talk
about college and start running again
I can eat half an orange
and drink a cup of milk after work tonight
before drifting off to sleep.

In pairs, they fall together again and again,
shoulder to shoulder, neck to neck,
heads close, they take on each others weight
with pleasure.

It looks like pleasure, an intimate pleasure,
an embrace—until the feet dig in and
the choreographed tussle begins.
It looks like pleasure
and so it must be
for what would hold them,
hour after hour,
in these forms of embrace,
bodily pressure, contact—
if not pleasure.

The environment is daunting, after all.
The grunts and shuffling feet,
yells of coaches create a noise
that even in its power
cannot rise above the hot stench
of bodies, struggling.
A steamy-loud-funk escapes the room
and they are all writhing in the midst of it—
creating a steamy hot punk funk
109-summer-degrees outside
and inside, the steam rises from their bodies.

This is how young men must touch each other—
hug, hold one another’s bodies—
without provoking disdain
without fear of abuse
without loss, loss, loss,
loss of everything

Summer wrestling camp,
the south gym at Fresno State University
is a giant room with hardwood floors
big blue mats hauled in two days ago
to cushion prancing feet and falls,
to guard the flesh and bones of boy’s tumbles,
shield knees from harm.

The door between the sunny day
and the stench of wrestlers
seems an easily passable
portal between worlds.
The gym is dark and slightly cooler
than the noon-time brightness
and yet within each wrestler,
a sun glows
drenching his clothes and skin
with sweat.

At the call of the coaches they
“BREAK! Give me 5 sit-ups!”
Then they’re back at it again
falling together, shoulder to shoulder,
enacting the forms of contact
common to the sport—
the rituals of contact within
the tightly controlled container
of combat and propriety.
Intimate propriety; their suns shine
making the paint want to peel
in the stench.
They fall together again and again
constrained by the form as they
make vital, human contact.

In the Black Country, from a little window,
Before I slept, across the haggard wastes
Of dust and ashes, I saw Titanic shafts
Like shadowy columns of wan-hope arise
To waste, on the blear sky, their slow sad wreaths
Of smoke, their infinitely sad slow prayers.
Then, as night deepened, the blast-furnaces,
Red smears upon the sulphurous blackness, turned
All that sad region to a City of Dis,
Where naked, sweating giants all night long
Bowed their strong necks, melted flesh, blood and bone,
To brim the dry ducts of the gods of gloom
With terrible rivers, branches of living gold.

O, like some tragic gesture of great souls
In agony, those awful columns towered
Against the clouds, that city of ash and slag
Assumed the grandeur of some direr Thebes
Arising to the death-chant of those gods,
A dreadful Order climbing from the dark
Of Chaos and Corruption, threatening to take
Heaven with its vast slow storm.
I slept, and dreamed.
And like the slow beats of some Titan heart
Buried beneath immeasurable woes,
The forging-hammers thudded through the dream:

Huge on a fallen tree,
Lost in the darkness of primeval woods,
Enceladus, earth-born Enceladus,
The naked giant, brooded all alone.
Born of the lower earth, he knew not how,
Born of the mire and clay, he knew not when,
Brought forth in darkness, and he knew not why!

Thus, like a wind, went by a thousand years.

Anhungered, yet no comrade of the wolf,
And cold, but with no power upon the sun,
A master of this world that mastered him!

Thus, like a cloud, went by a thousand years.

Who chained this other giant in his heart
That heaved and burned like Etna? Heavily
He bent his brows and wondered and was dumb.

And, like one wave, a thousand years went by.

He raised his matted head and scanned the stars.
He stood erect! He lifted his uncouth arms!
With inarticulate sounds his uncouth lips
Wrestled and strove—I am full-fed, and yet
I hunger!
Who set this fiercer famine in my maw?

Can I eat moons, gorge on the Milky Way,
Swill sunsets down, or sup the wash of the dawn
Out of the rolling swine-troughs of the sea?
Can I drink oceans, lie beneath the mountains,
And nuzzle their heavy boulders like a cub
Sucking the dark teats of the tigress? Who,
Who set this deeper hunger in my heart?
And the dark forest echoed—Who? Ah, who?

“I hunger!”
And the night-wind answered him,
“Hunt, then, for food.”

“I hunger!”
And the sleek gorged lioness
Drew nigh him, dripping freshly from the kill,
Redder her lolling tongue, whiter her fangs,
And gazed with ignorant eyes of golden flame.

“I hunger!”
Like a breaking sea his cry
Swept through the night. Against his swarthy knees
She rubbed the red wet velvet of her ears
With mellow thunders of unweeting bliss,
Purring—Ah, seek, and you shall find.
Ah, seek, and you shall slaughter, gorge, ah seek,
Seek, seek, you shall feed full, ah seek, ah seek.

Enceladus, earth-born Enceladus,
Bewildered like a desert-pilgrim, saw
A rosy City, opening in the clouds,
The hunger-born mirage of his own heart,
Far, far above the world, a home of gods,
Where One, a goddess, veiled in the sleek waves
Of her deep hair, yet glimmering golden through,
Lifted, with radiant arms, ambrosial food
For hunger such as this! Up the dark hills,
He rushed, a thunder-cloud,
Urged by the famine of his heart. He stood
High on the topmost crags, he hailed the gods
In thunder, and the clouds re-echoed it!

He hailed the gods!
And like a sea of thunder round their thrones
Washing, a midnight sea, his earth-born voice
Besieged the halls of heaven! He hailed the gods!
They laughed, he heard them laugh!
With echo and re-echo, far and wide,
A golden sea of mockery, they laughed!

Enceladus, earth-born Enceladus,
Laid hold upon the rosy Gates of Heaven,
And shook them with gigantic sooty hands,
Asking he knew not what, but not for alms;
And the Gates, opened as in jest;
And, like a sooty jest, he stumbled in.

Round him the gods, the young and scornful gods,
Clustered and laughed to mark the ravaged face,
The brutal brows, the deep and dog-like eyes,
The blunt black nails, and back with burdens bowed.
And, when they laughed, he snarled with uncouth lips
And made them laugh again.“Whence comest thou?”
He could not speak!
How should he speak whose heart within him heaved
And burned like Etna? Through his mouth there came
A sound of ice-bergs in a frozen sea
Of tears, a sullen region of black ice
Rending and breaking, very far away.
They laughed!
He stared at them, bewildered, and they laughed
Again, “Whence comest thou?”

He could not speak!
But through his mouth a moan of midnight woods,
Where wild beasts lay in wait to slaughter and gorge,
A moan of forest-caverns where the wolf
Brought forth her litter, a moan of the wild earth
In travail with strange shapes of mire and clay,
Creatures of clay, clay images of the gods,
That hungered like the gods, the most high gods,
But found no food, and perished like the beasts.

And the gods laughed,—Art thou, then, such a god? And, like a leaf
Unfolding in dark woods, in his deep brain
A sudden memory woke; and like an ape
He nodded, and all heaven with laughter rocked,
While Artemis cried out with scornful lips,—Perchance He is the Maker of you all!

Then, piteously outstretching calloused hands,
He sank upon his knees, his huge gnarled knees,
And echoed, falteringly, with slow harsh tongue,—Perchance, perchance, the Maker of you all.

They wept with laughter! And Aphrodite, she,
With keener mockery than white Artemis
Who smiled aloof, drew nigh him unabashed
In all her blinding beauty. Carelessly,
As o’er the brute brows of a stallèd ox
Across that sooty muzzle and brawny breast,
Contemptuously, she swept her golden hair
In one deep wave, a many-millioned scourge
Intolerable and beautiful as fire;
Then turned and left him, reeling, gasping, dumb,
While heaven re-echoed and re-echoed, See,
Perchance, perchance, the Maker of us all!

Enceladus, earth-born Enceladus,
Rose to his feet, and with one terrible cry“I hunger,” rushed upon the scornful gods
And strove to seize and hold them with his hands,
And still the laughter deepened as they rolled
Their clouds around them, baffling him. But once,
Once with a shout, in his gigantic arms
He crushed a slippery splendour on his breast
And felt on his harsh skin the cool smooth peaks
Of Aphrodite’s bosom. One black hand
Slid down the naked snow of her long side
And bruised it where he held her. Then, like snow
Vanishing in a furnace, out of his arms
The splendour suddenly melted, and a roll
Of thunder split the dream, and headlong down
He fell, from heaven to earth; while, overhead
The young and scornful gods—he heard them laugh!—
Toppled the crags down after him. He lay
Supine. They plucked up Etna by the roots
And buried him beneath it. His broad breast
Heaved, like that other giant in his heart,
And through the crater burst his fiery breath,
But could not burst his bonds. And so he lay
Breathing in agony thrice a thousand years.

Then came a Voice, he knew not whence, “Arise,
Enceladus!” And from his heart a crag
Fell, and one arm was free, and one thought free,
And suddenly he awoke, and stood upright,
Shaking the mountains from him like a dream;
And the tremendous light and awful truth
Smote, like the dawn, upon his blinded eyes,
That out of his first wonder at the world,
Out of his own heart’s deep humility,
And simple worship, he had fashioned gods
Of cloud, and heaven out of a hollow shell.
And groping now no more in the empty space
Outward, but inward in his own deep heart,
He suddenly felt the secret gates of heaven
Open, and from the infinite heavens of hope
Inward, a voice, from the innermost courts of Love,
Rang—Thou shall have none other gods but Me.

Enceladus, the foul Enceladus,
When the clear light out of that inward heaven
Whose gates are only inward in the soul,
Showed him that one true Kingdom, said,
“I will stretch
My hands out once again. And, as the God
That made me is the Heart within my heart,
So shall my heart be to this dust and earth
A god and a creator. I will strive
With mountains, fires and seas, wrestle and strive,
Fashion and make, and that which I have made
In anguish I shall love as God loves me.”

In the Black Country, from a little window,
Waking at dawn, I saw those giant Shafts
—O great dark word out of our elder speech,
Long since the poor man’s kingly heritage—
The Shapings, the dim Sceptres of Creation,
The Shafts like columns of wan-hope arise
To waste, on the blear sky, their slow sad wreaths
Of smoke, their infinitely sad slow prayers.
Then, as the dawn crimsoned, the sordid clouds,
The puddling furnaces, the mounds of slag,
The cinders, and the sand-beds and the rows
Of wretched roofs, assumed a majesty
Beyond all majesties of earth or air;
Beauty beyond all beauty, as of a child
In rags, upraised thro’ the still gold of heaven,
With wasted arms and hungering eyes, to bring
The armoured seraphim down upon their knees
And teach eternal God humility;
The solemn beauty of the unfulfilled
Moving towards fulfilment on a height
Beyond all heights; the dreadful beauty of hope;
The naked wrestler struggling from the rock
Under the sculptor’s chisel; the rough mass
Of clay more glorious for the poor blind face
And bosom that half emerge into the light,
More glorious and august, even in defeat,
Than that too cold dominion God foreswore
To bear this passionate universal load,
This Calvary of Creation, with mankind.

_____

by Andy Jones

First Dance

Your new wife and her relatives,
now your in-laws,
had never seen you dance before the big day,
and wondered how,
with all this bulky, residual muscle,
you knew how to move so well, so expressively.
As your coach and mentor,
I had been invited to help welcome you to adulthood,
And I knew.

First you and your partner start in a neutral position,
facing each other,
sizing each other up,
neither one yet in control.
Soon, if it’s a slow song,
you may take a head and shoulder lead,
so that you start ear to ear,
and her head may drop to your chest,
but ironically she has the advantage here,
for this is her arena,
so she is in command.

When the music changes,
when the pace quickens,
and adrenaline can be called upon,
there is a reversal.
You feel uplifted, and centered, and calm.
Now the hips come into play,
and your hips are well-trained.
you start hips down so as to create an angle,
and then spin her so as to drive strong across her hips,
and before she knows it,
you have impressed her with a hip lock,
followed by a hip heist and hip pop.
Such dexterity and vigor!

When the time is right,
you pull her near,
inside to your arms like a lock
so that all of her is adjacent to all of you,
and your staggered stance realigns her rhythm to yours.
Now you dictate the action,
and she circles to your trail leg.
You are feeling it now, sensing satisfaction and victory.
You step and slide,
and then one step back, and then circle.
Your every move had been practiced, horizontally,
as I stood over you with a whistle.

Your new bride, she loves it!
She is walking her fingers forward!
You are a flanker!
You are a double top stretcher!
Inspired, she kicks up her heel to her butt
and eliminates all the daylight between the two of you.
She hopes to keep up with your energy,
sees you as so graceful and authoritative here,
just as you always hoped to be on the mat.
And you realize, as you try to keep your hip on top,
that this moment here,
a moment when you are so strong, flexible, and smooth,
without a referee ever to stop you,
this might be your absolute last moment of control.

_____

_____

a traditional ballad

A Gest of Robyn Hode

The Second Fytte (verses 134-143)

He bare a launsgay in his honde,
And a man ledde his male,
And reden with a lyght songe
Unto Bernysdale.

But as he went at a brydge ther was a wrastelyng,
And there taryed was he,
And there was all the best yemen
Of all the west countree.

A full fayre game there was up set,
A whyte bulle up i-pyght,
A grete courser, with sadle and brydil,
With golde burnyssht full bryght.

A payre of gloves, a rede golde rynge,
A pype of wyne, in fay;
What man that bereth hym best i-wys
The pryce shall bere away.

There was a yoman in that place,
And best worthy was he,
And for he was ferre and frembde bested,
Slayne he shulde have be.

The knight had ruthe of this yoman,
In placë where that he stode;
He sayde that yoman shulde have no harme,
For love of Robyn Hode.

The knyght presed in to the place,
An hundreth folowed hym free,
With bowes bent and arowes sharpe,
For to shende that companye.

They shulderd all and made hym rome,
To wete what he wolde say;
He took the yeman bi the hande,
And gave hym al the play.

He gave hym five marke for his wyne,
There it lay on the molde,
And bad it shulde be set a broche,
Drynkë who so wolde.

Thus longe taried this gentyll knyght,
Tyll that play was done;
So long abode Robyn fastinge
Thre hourës after the none.

From the bloodless battle,
From wrestling with memories—those athletic ghosts,
From an aching reach for Beauty,
Speech has burst forth.
Not for Art’s sake,
But to rid me of an ancient sorrow—
Not mine alone and yet so wholly mine.
I have left no songs for an idle lute,
No pretty tunes of coddled ills,
But the bare chart of my growing pains.

How dare the robins sing,
When men and women hear
Who since they went to their account
Have settled with the year!—
Paid all that life had earned
In one consummate bill,
And now, what life or death can do
Is immaterial.
Insulting is the sun
To him whose mortal light
Beguiled of immortality
Bequeaths him to the night.
Extinct be every hum
In deference to him
Whose garden wrestles with the dew,
At daybreak overcome!

Thy name no more is Jacob! Thou hast seen
By faith’s keen vision, what thy trials mean!
Thy name is Israel! Knighted Prince of God!
For thou with him the wrestling ring hast trod!
Nay–cease! Ask not for my peculiar name,
Enough to know ’twill put thy foes to shame:
Take this white stone—’tis deeply graven there,
With thine, a token of prevailing prayer!
Forth to thy work—thy darkest dangers brave,
My name goes with thee, and ’tis strong to save!

Now, clear the ring! for, hand to hand,
The manly wrestlers take their stand.
Two o’er the rest superior rose,
And proud demanded mightier foes,—
Nor called in vain, for Douglas came.—
For life is Hugh of Larbert lame;
Scarce better John of Alloa’s fare,
Whom senseless home his comrades bare.
Prize of the wrestling match, the King
To Douglas gave a golden ring,
While coldly glanced his eye of blue,
As frozen drop of wintry dew.
Douglas would speak, but in his breast
His struggling soul his words suppressed;
Indignant then he turned him where
Their arms the brawny yeomen bare,
To hurl the massive bar in air.
When each his utmost strength had shown,
The Douglas rent an earth-fast stone
From its deep bed, then heaved it high,
And sent the fragment through the sky
A rood beyond the farthest mark;
And still in Stirling’s royal park,
The gray-haired sires, who know the past,
To strangers point the Douglas cast,
And moralize on the decay
Of Scottish strength in modern day.

he is a trickling thing of sand
a scintilla that drains back into the beach

a shock of trees
released by strong winds
he is a fish, a slither
an eel that flits away
then has me pinned

he is all around me
he clenches, shoves my face
towards his
buried down there
beneath our grinding feet
iron-eyed our faces

stare it out underground
through lock and tremor
we are two seismic prayers
to a god divided

he is a lion he is my mother he is the flicker of songbirds falling
as black snow in early evening my fingers are wings are poems
within his smoke we fold back to embrace
count five sudden things of magic
stamp and hold tight

lion mother phantom
my lost brother
whistles hard in the waves

old father in the fallen leaves offshore

we walk into the sea
each carrying the other
light as children who cannot return
rise only as the tide
sends up her drowned lanterns

The prairie meets the mountains at a place
where the journey ends for the meek or weak.
Here, cougar cunning versus buffalo strength
versus diamondback lightning, and survival
is measured in the ability to circle and strike,
grip and twist, lunge and sprawl, stand or fall.
It’s a lonely place where a man crawls inward,
communes with a creature that will lead or carry
him to the peak. The only sounds are a chinook
gathering strength as it blows from the fringes,sink it Sink it Sink It Sink IT SINK IT!
On your toes. Drive Drive DRIVEDRIVEDRIVE!
and a clap of thunder that slaps against the hardpan.

My ex-lover was a wrestler,
liked the strain of power against
the rumors: two men. There was
a gain in him showing me the basic
positions and me only pinning him
once. Maybe he let me. The girls
wanted him, wanted to haunt him,
but he’d kiss me in the gym and
no one dared to mess with him,
the message clear: in America,
we have free will. I think of
Whitman’s brief reference to
shirtless wrestlers, but closer
to home, my lover would go
to his opponent and there was
an art to his rage. And I felt like
the lover in The Great White Hope:
all sidelines, unsure how this became
my life, that I was courageous too,
in my own way, as I screamed,flip him now! Nothing like having
to fail in front of your boyfriend when
the world hated us. The future will
not understand how important that
he and I wrestled angels with moral
messages because we made each
other pure. He’d kissed me to piss off
people and I kissed him back because
he was sweaty, tired, and proud of
me for being proud of him. He had
never lost a match, but then he lost me.

I am fourteen years old
muscles held together with skin and grit
goaty, an ephebe, tufty hair above my lip
for one eighth of one inch the red slow twitch
of blood pricks my lats in a thousand points
and I my body, its dozen senses, am my body
upright levator scapulae
sucking the muscles of my tongue
and measuring you
brachioradialis
plectrum—
I am hundreds of muscles.

My eyes are muscles that see
you shoot before your breath burns
across my lynx ears.
I am on you, nociceptor, know me.

Lacrimae, lacrimae I press you back.
I am all muscle and you
are finished.

Its medal is the oldest trophy
awarded in Western athletics.
Its communion attracts few females.
Still it’s not like joining the Marines,
not like the feuds of pushtunwali
where a man seals clan triumph
by drinking the guy’s blood.
But it does man you up
and despite its claim to being a team
sport, it is not.
The ferrety mass of your opponent
the slug of his sweat on your throat
that last inch
is you losing, not your yelling coach or
the guy next weight up, it’s all you
when you lose.

from the Funeral Games in Honour of Patroclus, after Homer, The Iliad, Book XXIII

The Prizegiving

‘Noëmon friend of Antilochos
lead the mare away’
as Menelaus himself took the glittering cauldron.
Fourth, as driven, Meriones carried off the two talents’ weight of gold.
Only the two handed jar was left.
Achilles carried it through the Argives to Nestor,

standing there he spoke;—

‘Elder, in memory of Patrokulus, a treasure for you to lay away,
He is gone from the Argives for evermore
this prize mine to give for the giving
for you will not fight with fists or wrestle with limbs
nor stand with the spear throwers
nor race fleet footed
as age claims her due’

Speaking thus he placed it in Nestor’s hands
who answered with joy

‘Yes youth you speak truth
my limbs betray me as do my feet
my friend
my arms swing ponderous
I wish for youth and strength within me
as it was with Amaryngkeus and the Epeians at Bouprasion,
the sons kings’ funeral games
I was alone among the Epeians
and the Pylians and the brave Aitolians
Klytomedes, the son of Enops fell to my fists
Angkaios of Pleuron I wrestled to the floor
I outran the fast Iphiklos
Polydoros and Phyleus watched my spear fly away
only the chariot of the sons of Aktor defeated me
crowd crossing champions chasing the prize
the twins of Aktor, as one held the reins loose the other lashed the horses

But this all in the past . . .

An Elder must make way for youth
I embrace my aging, an old hero among the young
Enough of me, more to the contest in honour of your friend
I take this prize with joy and a happy heart
to be remembered, a kindness,
I am not forgotten the honour due to me among the Achaians
for this may the gods grant you great happiness.’

Once he wrestled a bear, he said,
in a bar off-campus with eyes
glossy from lager, he wrestled
a bear. Claws and all, black fur
and the salmon of its muscles
leaping under the black fur.
Wrestled and won, he said,
the bear pinned and snorting,
pinned and one hundred pounds
heavier, with claws, with claws
and teeth, the electric blue current
of animal instinct. I was gullible
once, under kindergarten lights
with glitter and paste, building
a galaxy. A boy stole my stars
once, a bigger boy I wrestled
under the night of blackboard.
Wrestled and lost, pinned
and weeping with my back
to the carpet, with the fireflies
of glitter dazzling on my skin.
To the man who said he wrestled
a bear, wrestled and won, I said,
You’re full of bear shit. But
a scar is proof and so began
the slow striptease of a pant leg
rolled to his knee. There, he said.
And his story sparkled on his flesh.

Weighed in, lots drawn,
smelling of puke and sweat,
chewing on black mouth guards,
the one in the yellow shorts
vs. the one in the blue shorts.
Referee in black socks
and black plimsolls
blows his whistle.
Men fall together, splat!
Tangle of legs, arms,
swish of dripping sweat,
meat against mat,
a mass of bone and tendons,
faces contorted in pain.
The mat chairman amasses points
judge verifies the fall, the touche.
The referee calls it:
Yellow shorts, black and blue,
the victor by nine points.

You shall hear how Hiawatha
Prayed and fasted in the forest,
Not for greater skill in hunting,
Not for greater craft in fishing,
Not for triumphs in the battle,
And renown among the warriors,
But for profit of the people,
For advantage of the nations.

First he built a lodge for fasting,
Built a wigwam in the forest,
By the shining Big-Sea-Water,
In the blithe and pleasant Spring-time,
In the Moon of Leaves he built it,
And, with dreams and visions many,
Seven whole days and nights he fasted.

On the first day of his fasting
Through the leafy woods he wandered;
Saw the deer start from the thicket,
Saw the rabbit in his burrow,
Heard the pheasant, Bena, drumming,
Heard the squirrel, Adjidaumo,
Rattling in his hoard of acorns,
Saw the pigeon, the Omeme,
Building nests among the pinetrees,
And in flocks the wild-goose, Wawa,
Flying to the fen-lands northward,
Whirring, wailing far above him.
“Master of Life!” he cried, desponding,
“Must our lives depend on these things?”

On the next day of his fasting
By the river’s brink he wandered,
Through the Muskoday, the meadow,
Saw the wild rice, Mahnomonee,
Saw the blueberry, Meenahga,
And the strawberry, Odahmin,
And the gooseberry, Shahbomin,
And the grape-vine, the Bemahgut,
Trailing o’er the alder-branches,
Filling all the air with fragrance!
“Master of Life!” he cried, desponding,
“Must our lives depend on these things?”

On the third day of his fasting
By the lake he sat and pondered,
By the still, transparent water;
Saw the sturgeon, Nahma, leaping,
Scattering drops like beads of wampum,
Saw the yellow perch, the Sahwa,
Like a sunbeam in the water,
Saw the pike, the Maskenozha,
And the herring, Okahahwis,
And the Shawgashee, the crawfish!
“Master of Life!” he cried, desponding,
“Must our lives depend on these things?”

On the fourth day of his fasting
In his lodge he lay exhausted;
From his couch of leaves and branches
Gazing with half-open eyelids,
Full of shadowy dreams and visions,
On the dizzy, swimming landscape,
On the gleaming of the water,
On the splendor of the sunset.

And he saw a youth approaching,
Dressed in garments green and yellow,
Coming through the purple twilight,
Through the splendor of the sunset;
Plumes of green bent o’er his forehead,
And his hair was soft and golden.

Standing at the open doorway,
Long he looked at Hiawatha,
Looked with pity and compassion
On his wasted form and features,
And, in accents like the sighing
Of the South-Wind in the tree-tops,
Said he, “O my Hiawatha!
All your prayers are heard in heaven,
For you pray not like the others;
Not for greater skill in hunting,
Not for greater craft in fishing,
Not for triumph in the battle,
Nor renown among the warriors,
But for profit of the people,
For advantage of the nations.

“From the Master of Life descending,
I, the friend of man, Mondamin,
Come to warn you and instruct you,
How by struggle and by labor
You shall gain what you have prayed for.
Rise up from your bed of branches,
Rise, O youth, and wrestle with me!”

Faint with famine, Hiawatha
Started from his bed of branches,
From the twilight of his wigwam
Forth into the flush of sunset
Came, and wrestled with Mondamin;
At his touch he felt new courage
Throbbing in his brain and bosom,
Felt new life and hope and vigor
Run through every nerve and fibre.

So they wrestled there together
In the glory of the sunset,
And the more they strove and struggled,
Stronger still grew Hiawatha;
Till the darkness fell around them,
And the heron, the Shuh-shuh-gah,
From her nest among the pine-trees,
Gave a cry of lamentation,
Gave a scream of pain and famine.

“‘T is enough!” then said Mondamin,
Smiling upon Hiawatha,
“But tomorrow, when the sun sets,
I will come again to try you.”
And he vanished, and was seen not;
Whether sinking as the rain sinks,
Whether rising as the mists rise,
Hiawatha saw not, knew not,
Only saw that he had vanished,
Leaving him alone and fainting,
With the misty lake below him,
And the reeling stars above him.

On the morrow and the next day,
When the sun through heaven descending,
Like a red and burning cinder
From the hearth of the Great Spirit,
Fell into the western waters,
Came Mondamin for the trial,
For the strife with Hiawatha;
Came as silent as the dew comes,
From the empty air appearing,
Into empty air returning,
Taking shape when earth it touches,
But invisible to all men
In its coming and its going.

Thrice they wrestled there together
In the glory of the sunset,
Till the darkness fell around them,
Till the heron, the Shuh-shuh-gah,
From her nest among the pine-trees,
Uttered her loud cry of famine,
And Mondamin paused to listen.

Tall and beautiful he stood there,
In his garments green and yellow;
To and fro his plumes above him,
Waved and nodded with his breathing,
And the sweat of the encounter
Stood like drops of dew upon him.

And he cried, “O Hiawatha!
Bravely have you wrestled with me,
Thrice have wrestled stoutly with me,
And the Master of Life, who sees us,
He will give to you the triumph!”

Then he smiled, and said: “To-morrow
Is the last day of your conflict,
Is the last day of your fasting.
You will conquer and o’ercome me;
Make a bed for me to lie in,
Where the rain may fall upon me,
Where the sun may come and warm me;
Strip these garments, green and yellow,
Strip this nodding plumage from me,
Lay me in the earth, and make it
Soft and loose and light above me.

“Let no hand disturb my slumber,
Let no weed nor worm molest me,
Let not Kahgahgee, the raven,
Come to haunt me and molest me,
Only come yourself to watch me,
Till I wake, and start, and quicken,
Till I leap into the sunshine”

And thus saying, he departed;
Peacefully slept Hiawatha,
But he heard the Wawonaissa,
Heard the whippoorwill complaining,
Perched upon his lonely wigwam;
Heard the rushing Sebowisha,
Heard the rivulet rippling near him,
Talking to the darksome forest;
Heard the sighing of the branches,
As they lifted and subsided
At the passing of the night-wind,
Heard them, as one hears in slumber
Far-off murmurs, dreamy whispers:
Peacefully slept Hiawatha.

On the morrow came Nokomis,
On the seventh day of his fasting,
Came with food for Hiawatha,
Came imploring and bewailing,
Lest his hunger should o’ercome him,
Lest his fasting should be fatal.

But he tasted not, and touched not,
Only said to her, “Nokomis,
Wait until the sun is setting,
Till the darkness falls around us,
Till the heron, the Shuh-shuh-gah,
Crying from the desolate marshes,
Tells us that the day is ended.”

Homeward weeping went Nokomis,
Sorrowing for her Hiawatha,
Fearing lest his strength should fail him,
Lest his fasting should be fatal.
He meanwhile sat weary waiting
For the coming of Mondamin,
Till the shadows, pointing eastward,
Lengthened over field and forest,
Till the sun dropped from the heaven,
Floating on the waters westward,
As a red leaf in the Autumn
Falls and floats upon the water,
Falls and sinks into its bosom.

And behold! the young Mondamin,
With his soft and shining tresses,
With his garments green and yellow,
With his long and glossy plumage,
Stood and beckoned at the doorway.
And as one in slumber walking,
Pale and haggard, but undaunted,
From the wigwam Hiawatha
Came and wrestled with Mondamin.

Round about him spun the landscape,
Sky and forest reeled together,
And his strong heart leaped within him,
As the sturgeon leaps and struggles
In a net to break its meshes.
Like a ring of fire around him
Blazed and flared the red horizon,
And a hundred suns seemed looking
At the combat of the wrestlers.

Suddenly upon the greensward
All alone stood Hiawatha,
Panting with his wild exertion,
Palpitating with the struggle;
And before him breathless, lifeless,
Lay the youth, with hair dishevelled,
Plumage torn, and garments tattered,
Dead he lay there in the sunset.

And victorious Hiawatha
Made the grave as he commanded,
Stripped the garments from Mondamin,
Stripped his tattered plumage from him,
Laid him in the earth, and made it
Soft and loose and light above him;
And the heron, the Shuh-shuh-gah,
From the melancholy moorlands,
Gave a cry of lamentation,
Gave a cry of pain and anguish!

Homeward then went Hiawatha
To the lodge of old Nokomis,
And the seven days of his fasting
Were accomplished and completed.
But the place was not forgotten
Where he wrestled with Mondamin;
Nor forgotten nor neglected
Was the grave where lay Mondamin,
Sleeping in the rain and sunshine,
Where his scattered plumes and garments
Faded in the rain and sunshine.

Day by day did Hiawatha
Go to wait and watch beside it;
Kept the dark mould soft above it,
Kept it clean from weeds and insects,
Drove away, with scoffs and shoutings,
Kahgahgee, the king of ravens.

Till at length a small green feather
From the earth shot slowly upward,
Then another and another,
And before the Summer ended
Stood the maize in all its beauty,
With its shining robes about it,
And its long, soft, yellow tresses;
And in rapture Hiawatha
Cried aloud, “It is Mondamin!
Yes, the friend of man, Mondamin!”

Then he called to old Nokomis
And Iagoo, the great boaster,
Showed them where the maize was growing,
Told them of his wondrous vision,
Of his wrestling and his triumph,
Of this new gift to the nations,
Which should be their food forever.

And still later, when the Autumn
Changed the long, green leaves to yellow,
And the soft and juicy kernels
Grew like wampum hard and yellow,
Then the ripened ears he gathered,
Stripped the withered husks from off them,
As he once had stripped the wrestler,
Gave the first Feast of Mondamin,
And made known unto the people
This new gift of the Great Spirit.

Fairest piece of well-form’d earth!
Urge not thus your haughty birth;
The power which you have o’er us lies
Not in your race, but in your eyes.
‘None but a prince!’—Alas! that voice
Confines you to a narrow choice.
Should you no honey vow to taste,
But what the master-bees have placed
In compass of their cells, how small
A portion to your share would fall!
Nor all appear, among those few,
Worthy the stock from whence they grew.
The sap which at the root is bred
In trees, through all the boughs is spread;
But virtues which in parents shine,
Make not like progress through the line.
‘Tis not from whom, but where, we live;
The place does oft those graces give.
Great Julius, on the mountains bred,
A flock perhaps, or herd, had led.
He that the world subdued, had been
But the best wrestler on the green.
‘Tis art and knowledge which draw forth
The hidden seeds of native worth;
They blow those sparks, and make them rise
Into such flames as touch the skies.
To the old heroes hence was given
A pedigree which reached to heaven;
Of mortal seed they were not held,
Which other mortals so excell’d.
And beauty, too, in such excess
As yours, Zelinda! claims no less.
Smile but on me, and you shall scorn,
Henceforth, to be of princes born.
I can describe, the shady grove
Where your loved mother slept with Jove;
And yet excuse the faultless dame,
Caught with her spouse’s shape and name.
Thy matchless form will credit bring
To all the wonders I shall sing.

In vain thou strugglest to get free,
I never will unloose my hold:
Art thou the Man that died for me?
The secret of thy love unfold:
Wrestling, I will not let thee go,
Till I thy name, thy nature know.

Wilt thou not yet to me reveal
thy new, unutterable name?
Tell me, I still beseech thee, tell;
To know it now resolv’d I am:
Wrestling I will not let thee go,
Till I thy name, thy nature know.

What though my shrinking flesh complain,
And murmur to contend so long?
I rise superior to my pain;
When I am weak then am I strong:
And when my all of strength shall fail,
I shall with the God-man prevail.

Yield to me now for I am weak;
But confident in self-despair!
Speak to my heart, in blessings speak;
Be conquer’d by my instant prayer;
Speak, or thou never hence shalt move,
And tell me if thy name be Love.

My prayer hath power with God; the grace
Unspeakable I now receive;
Through faith I see thee face to face;
I see thee face to face, and live:
In vain I have not wept and strove;
Thy nature and thy name is Love.

I know thee, Saviour, who thou art,
Jesus, the feeble sinner’s friend,
Nor wilt thou with the night depart,
But stay and love me to the end:
Thy mercies never shall remove;
Thy nature and thy name is Love.

The Sun of Righteousness on me
Hath rose, with healing in his wings;
Wither’d my nature’s strength; from thee
My soul its life and succour brings;
My help is all laid up above;
Thy nature and thy name is Love.

Contented now upon my thigh
I halt till life’s short journey end;
All helplessness, all weakness, I
On thee alone for strength depend;
Nor have I power from thee to move;
thy nature and thy name is Love.

Lame as I am, I take the prey;
Hell, earth, and sin with ease o’ercome;
I leap for joy, pursue my way,
And, as a bounding hart fly home,
Through all eternity to prove
Thy nature and thy name is Love.

I’m sitting at a desk, in a motel right now, copying this dialogue word for word from the manuscript you just gave me

And this is what I say next

You see, I made you come here alone

I made you hand it over

I even made it snow

And you

He points at me

Made it all possible

Without even knowing it

Though, of course, you had your suspicions

And that’s why you got the job

I even know what you’re thinking now

He crouches down and plucks a pebble from the grass, then steps forward and holds it before my eyes

Here’s your stone, a stone so heavy it breaks my heart at the thought of it, a stone so heavy the whole of creation rises from the depression it has made in time, a stone so heavy with sickness I cannot lift it one moment more or I shall perish

He tosses it over the garden wall

‘Abdu Manaf was the strongest man among the Quraysh, and one day he met the apostle in one of the passes of Mecca alone: “Rukana,” said he, “why won’t you fear God and accept my preaching?”‘

That simple

But here’s the real kicker

There’s an infinite chain of sets of god

Each self-conscious set containing the previous set within it

And each emergently conscious one becoming aware of the next larger set

Becoming it

For example, one is thinking both of us right now as our story rolls through its mind

And as long as it holds us, whether we are conscious of it or not, we are part of its infinity

As the heart of all layers is the utmost layer

‘”If I knew that what you say is true I would follow you,” he said’

You see, common consciousness now is realizing you’re a character in other people’s dreams

But you’re going a step further

Listen carefully to who it is you talk to when you’re alone

The schizophrenic may be the human to the limit

Will we find who we are talking to one day and see that there is no longer a future, perhaps when we are all together, at the beginning and end of time

Will we decide to begin again

‘The apostle then asked him if he would recognize that he spoke the truth if he threw him, and when he said Yes they began to wrestle, and when the apostle got a firm grip of him he threw him to the ground, he being unable to offer any effective resistance’

When the whole speaks to the individual

When I speak to You

And now you ask

You want me to worship you

No, I couldn’t love someone who didn’t consider me their equal

Besides, I contain only one more than you

Now that I’m aware of you, what am I supposed to do

‘”Do it again, Muhammad,” he said, and he did it again’

Wrestle me

Wrestle you

Yes

That’s ridiculous

Every threshold is

‘”This is extraordinary,” he said, “can you really throw me”‘

What are you doing

He kneels down, turtling himself before me, and I hear his whisper in my ear

You must make me submit

But you’ve just submitted

I’m different than preceding gods that charged like mad bulls

‘With their elbows against their elbows, dealt they, knees against knees, head against head, and chest against chest, one another their blows’

I’m a bit more subtle than that

As long as I breathe you will breathe my air

‘That same night he sent his two wives, his two maids, and his eleven children, across the ford of the Jabbok’

I’ll just walk away

You can’t

I turn to the wall, but it’s risen to the stars

It glorifies the next greater god to grapple with you

By contrasting itself with you, it reminds itself what it is

The cold and night make a silver bouquet of my sigh

Alright

‘Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him until daybreak’

The voices of my teachers return to me

You must close the distance between yourself and your opponent so he cannot strike you

Don’t leave gaps so he can slip an arm or leg in

If one is flexible enough to do so, one can break holds that strength alone cannot

Hold him closer than a lover

‘When the man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob, he struck him on the hip socket, and Jacob’s hip was put out of joint as he wrestled with him’

With your right hand grab his collar and with your left hand his belt

And lift

Creating just enough space to slide your right foot between his armpit and his thigh

We’re enlightened through such struggle with the other

For example, ‘jihad’ is properly defined as an all-encompassing engagement of one’s self with one’s world

Between one and one’s limitations

‘Then the man said, “Let me go, for the day is breaking”‘

What you call yourself is this conversation between ‘You’ and ‘I’

Just between you and I

Move so you are standing on his thighs with both feet

Through the narrative generated by such struggle is vision most viscerally achieved

And through the physicality of figuration most effectively transmitted

‘But Jacob said, “I will not let you go, unless you bless me”‘

Now use both hands to hoist up on his collar, while thrusting your feet between his legs to the ground, assuming the ‘back mount’ position

When I enter a classroom, I don’t see Protestants, Catholics, Sunnis, Shias, Hindus, Buddhists, Maronites, Druze, Agnostics, or Atheists

I see gods sitting in the desks, filling the room with anxious radiance

Lay your right arm over his right shoulder and under his chin, with the inside of your arm touching the tender of his neck

‘So he said to him, “What is your name?” and he said, “Jacob”‘

What can I say to keep this uneasy host from tearing the world apart

I am mortal, and have but this short day of mine with which to grapple

Grab your left bicep with your right hand and place the back of your left hand behind his head with the palm facing you

‘Then the man said, “You shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with humans, and have prevailed”‘

And make a fist

Each grapples with me in turn and only through flexibility do I survive their superhuman embrace

Once the fist is made, do the following things to create pressure on the arteries at the sides of his neck

Bend your left palm away from you

Flex your biceps

Squeeze your right forearm toward your right shoulder

And hold it

Though the Earth may tremble

Take these snowflakes, each as similar and as different as the memory of your first kiss recalled at different moments in your life

I catch one on my tongue and it melts from staggering diversity of design into the unity of water, and diffuses into my bloodstream across the membrane of my parched throat

It is no longer the blood of a single man

It is the blood of the universe

When reading, you think you are merely having a conversation with a writer from elsewhere in spacetime, unpresent and undead

We drink it endlessly

As we drink in the sight of our lovers with our eyes

But you and the text have become part of a greater consciousness, speaking to itself, working something out in its mind

The sky dripping with what has ever evaporated

With what has ever condensed from confusion to exhaustion

What has ever left a stain behind

As the unconscious ancients were right to assume the voice of conscience they heard was the voice of a god

What we in the privileged present call consciousness

You drink the blood of all life

Of the exhalation we inhabit

Of earth and stars and endless space

As knowable as time alone allows

Wrestling with a god was wrestling with a new form of consciousness that was overcoming you—a new level emerging—and if you lost, you remained in that god’s service—and if you won, you looked down at your feared, beloved, defeated god, lying, panting, on the ground, and for the first time you spoke to yourself—in shock you asked

We pose opposite one another
like Hercules and the Cretan Bull,
but the mad beast gets away from me again,
terrorizing the lands beyond my desk,
here in Massachusetts, not in Greece.
Some days I try to sneak up on him, guerilla style,
but he dances away,
snorting at my inadequacies.
Despite my study of poetics,
my piece of paper on the wall,
the innocuous M.F.A.,
a two year’s journey into conversation,
followed by workshops with the best of poets,
a foray into teaching is inspiring,
a few good sparks, perhaps a flame,
the match continues.
We fall together.
When I find a hold,
the poem slithers out, that oily boy.
So, I look for a new move,
try a poem a day, a practice,
in thirty days a few good possibilities.
Now there are thirty new bulls
wrestling me to the ground.